An exploration of the impact of prior achievement, task complexity, cultural knowledge, and performance feedback on the mathematics self-efficacy and self-assessment of African-American pre-adolescent students

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of prior achievement, task complexity, cultural knowledge, and performance feedback on the math self-efficacy and self-assessment of African-American pre-adolescent students.; The participants were 72 African-American fourth- and fifth-grade students attending an urban, low-income, elementary school. Testing took place over the course of two sessions approximately three weeks apart. In the first session of the study, participants were presented with a math self-efficacy scale pretest followed by a math self-assessment pretest. During the second session of the study, participants were randomly assigned to one of eight experimental conditions. Finally, participants were administered a math self-assessment posttest followed by a math self-efficacy posttest.; Participants' final math grades for the 1st advisory of the 2003--2004 school year served as their prior math achievement and were treated as a covariate variable. Task complexity (TC) was measured through the use of two conditions. In the Simple condition, participants were presented with 8 division computational problems; in the Complex condition, participants were presented with 8 division word problems. Cultural knowledge (CK) was defined as knowledge of African-American mathematicians and/or scientists and consisted of two conditions. In the Cultural Knowledge Math condition, participants were presented with three short biographies of African-American mathematicians and/or scientists. In the Cultural Knowledge non-Math condition, participants were presented with three biographies of African Americans in other fields of study. Performance feedback (PF) served as a third experimental variable and also consisted of two conditions. Participants received either success or failure feedback regardless of their actual performance on the math task.; It was hypothesized that the four aforementioned factors would result in significant differences in the math self-efficacy and self-assessment of African-American pre-adolescent students. It was also hypothesized that task complexity, performance feedback, and gender would result in significant differences in students' math self-efficacy and self-assessment.; Two 3-way MANCOVAs were conducted {lcub}(TC x CK x PF) and (TC x PF x Gender){rcub}. Results of both analyses yielded a significant main effect on math self-assessment due to performance feedback. Additionally, in the second analysis (TC x PF x Gender), prior achievement resulted in a significant main effect on math self-efficacy. Several secondary analyses were also conducted. The results of these analyses, as well as implications for future research, are discussed in greater detail within the paper.